


bury me as a dog

by goengshis



Category: EXO (Band), NCT (Band), SuperM (Korea Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, I Don't Know Anymore, Lowercase, M/M, Making Out, Marijuana, Philosophical While Smoking Weed, Possibly unhealthy relationship but it's an emotional moment, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Indulgent, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 08:50:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20112421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goengshis/pseuds/goengshis
Summary: "we're never gonna get old, huh.""is that what's been bothering you?"





	bury me as a dog

**Author's Note:**

> this prompt brought to you by: [tumblr](https://gingerly-writing.tumblr.com/post/186751309573/prompt-1778/).  
pairing was chosen by min/@sehunprint on twitter.

he can’t really remember exactly when he came to terms with his own mortality.

it’s completely possible that there was never a true moment, just the ebb and flow of childhood eroding away at the canyons inside of him, leaving trails like sticky fingers over his guts. it’s also feasible that, this (hypothetically) being fact, he wouldn’t be expected to remember something so banal, pointless. like picking out a favorite cigarette from the pack, eventually you smoke them all anyway; everyone dies one day.

more than anything, it’s made him pensive and somber and thoughtful, moody with tints of happiness in the edges, as if a part of him knows there’s more than just clouds in the sky, like he knows that the only reason he ever started smoking in the first place was to kill himsel—

no. why cut himself off so quickly?

why do that, when he can dangle his feet off the ledge of his window, hanging out with a tray in his lap, a pen light held in his mouth? there’s an itch for nicotine that he refuses to scratch just yet, mixing bud with tobacco because anything else isn’t hard enough, isn’t soft enough, and there’s music playing in the background from his computer speakers: instrumental, experimental. chill out shit. smoke sesh shit.

his door opens and closes. the little huff and the thud of a bag dropping hits him right where the childhood used to be. there’s familiarity in the way he does this, in the way they do this, wordless and without much regard. black kraken appears on the sill, and then a tall boy follows, pulling at the white mask covering the lower half of his pretty face. he pushes a cigarette between his lips, reaching for the zippo on the tray. he lights up in lieu of a greeting.

“did they notice?”

“what?” asks the tall boy.

“your parents. the booze?”

the tall boy laughs a little. “you think they’d drink kraken? we aren’t kids anymore, tae. less sneaking around.”

tae, or taeyong governmentally, shrugs, a flush spreading over his cold face, and the spliff shakes a little too hard in his hands. he curses under his breath, steels himself before returning to the task at hand, and he doesn’t say what he’s thinking: doesn’t dare mourn the fact that the quote unquote real world is around them now like a stalking predator, refuses to highlight the fact that taeyong is technically still unable to legally drink alcohol (for the next two months), and he lets his canines dig into the meat of his lip.

“your parents don’t like you hanging out with me,” he offers to the silence.

“_your_ parents don’t like me either, y’know.” the boy looks over at him, gets a little closer, like the haze from the nicotine isn’t suffocating enough, like the basslines of the song that’s playing right now isn’t boring a hole through his chest at this very moment—he looks a little like a ghost this up close. “what’s got you beating yourself up like this?”

“nothin’,” taeyong deflects, licking a line up the spliff to close it, takes the lighter from the boy to seal it. he twists one end with a practiced flick, sticks it in his waiting mouth, and sets it aflame. like power, like moths to the moon, eyes pouring out of their sockets as the smoke settles deep in his lungs, acrid and suffocating and he’s exhaling on a sigh. his head tips back, eyes closed, melting. “nothin’, i just— feeling philosophical right now, i guess.”

“that’s never good,” replies the boy. he takes the proffered spliff and takes a big hit too, and taeyong watches from a hooded gaze the way the boy’s pupils dilate, the way his muscles seem to loosen, stress easing out of his very pores like oil.

“fuck you too, jongin.”

“now that’s not very nice,” he teases again, taking one more baby drag. wisps stream out from between tombstone teeth. taeyong is staring.

he’s been doing it more, he thinks, staring and staring at jongin and his sharp features and his smooth skin and the way he always puts chap stick on and it’s always some dumb lipsmackers flavor that johnny got his hands on, probably root beer or lemon or something, and he’s leaning in without meaning to, but then he’s snatching the weed from his friend, nostrils flaring but without any real bite. “you and i aren’t very nice anyway,” he mumbles.

“i don’t know,” jongin hums, eyes sparkling like he knows something taeyong doesn’t. this is the usual. he’ll never get used to it. his body language speaks for hours without using a single word: open and free and careless, the dusk air lending a breeze to blushing skin, warmth blossoming like a bruise and spreading, infecting everything until jongin is entrenched in everything that belongs to him again. “you’re pretty nice to look at.”

taeyong snorts on an inhale, coughs in spite of himself, but he’s laughing. the laughter, if anything, is slightly hollow, mostly surprised to match the raised eyebrows and the wide eyes. jongin is licking his lips. he takes a swig of rum from the bottle, shivers but swallows.

like fire, he likes the burn.

“aren’t even high and you’re trying to get me into bed? when’re you gonna make an honest man out of me?” taeyong jokes, voice raspy and throat scratchy, dry. the rum goes down as lava does, lets out an _ahh_ and then an _ugh_ that’s rather unbecoming of him, but who is there to laugh at him? it’s just him, jongin, and the cars beneath them.

he could probably jump if he wanted to. honestly, he doubts that jongin would really put up much of a fight about it, because they’ve known each other long enough that things like love and death have become less of a worry, of a means, and more of a silent touch, a quieted scream, and suddenly it’s like taeyong’s been electrocuted, a shock running under his skin, and jongin’s hand is around his wrist and it’s big and it’s strong and it’s warm, solid like statues, and he has never feared death as much as he has in this moment.

“jongin,” he starts in a whisper. their eyes are glued to their connection, the spliff still passing between them as it goes, and when it’s nothing but a roach, jongin stashes it in the jar nearby, and when he pulls away, jongin is following and maybe this is their _i love you_ moment, their confession, their big finale. “jongin,” repeats taeyong.

“what?”

as if light, the sound travels and reaches him and it’s rough and deep and oh, how did that happen? can he do it again? can he keep touching? please, he thinks, please keep touching lest i float away without you holding me down. anchor me, taeyong thinks, begs, pull me to you and bury me.

_careful_—

“we’re never gonna grow old, are we?” he whispers. the music shut off a while ago; he’s almost certain that his laptop died. in the near stillness, the swaying of tree branches outside and the curls of smoke around the room, the way they’ve drifted closer to one another by the sill, the back of taeyong’s knees against his mattress, and jongin’s holding his hand now, or maybe taeyong’s holding his or maybe it’s both, neither, he shakes his head to get the thoughts out like a dog sheds water from its fur.

“is that what’s been bothering you?”

it’s weird. there’s no laughter, not a smile, not a tease, and this isn’t what they’ve been, who they are, and he isn’t even sure if he’s high anymore—he blinks and is reminded that he is definitely high—and his lungs feel deficient of anything resembling oxygen and jongin is looking at him with honeyed eyes with his long eyelashes and heavy lids. jongin is looking at him without an ounce of mirth in his body, all seriousness, all choked back revelations and late-night epiphanies at a sleepover back in middle school, or maybe it was the one in elementary school. sixth grade, maybe?

taeyong says, “we aren’t, huh.”

“nah,” jongin responds. he twines their fingers together. he’s closer now. “not a chance. but hey,” he continues, nose touching his, and the air between them is warm, radiating from the core of them, a centerpiece at a dinner table, “we can still make life worth it while it lasts.”

it’s like this: there is a before and an after in everything. in this situation, there is a before jongin kissed taeyong and an after jongin kissed taeyong, and taeyong is certain that this makes sense because in how humans explain time, there is a past and a present and a future. but for the sanity of him, he cannot recall ever being someone who has never kissed jongin before. he can’t ever imagine not having pulled jongin even closer, okay with the simple touch of their lips but still needing more, needing to touch something, _him_, because if not he will surely float away or fall further or perhaps just suspend himself in midair, powerless.

he twists his free hand into jongin’s hair, his other hand still locked in the other boy’s grasp, currently nestled at taeyong’s cheek, palms sweaty and slipping but he only holds on tighter. there isn’t much pretense to the way taeyong opens his mouth, though. jongin lets out the softest sigh ever made, muffled by the way he sucks taeyong’s tongue into his mouth.

it’s a lot.

he can say it. he’s comfortable enough with this. it’s _a lot_.

it’s a lot to find yourself living because your best friend says_ why not_? and it’s a lot, probably, that he isn’t waking up to an uncomfortable boner right about now. jongin is guiding him, though, as he always has: a strong hand against his spine, a smile on jongin’s full lips, a sureness that he can’t really fathom but one that sends fire through his veins and he’s burning up, a pure coil of nervous energy that’s only staying inside because jongin is _here_.

and this isn’t a dream.

and the boner he has right now _isn’t_ awkward. kind of uncomfortable, if he’s honest.

their palms know the language that their mouths don’t. the bed is firm and clean and jongin will always smell like cologne and tobacco, and taeyong is greedy in how he burrows further into him like a rodent in a birdhouse as their shirts come off.

with a reverence, he comes to know the other boy’s body as one might learn their own: with wide eyes and a quiet awe, pressing into every scar, every dent in his flesh with a pad of a finger. it’s like hymns should be made about jongin’s very form, his soul, the heat of hell trapped in an angel of a boy. taeyong looks at him and sees god, sees the devil, sees everything—

“come back to me,” jongin’s whispering. always whispering, rarely loud, not with him, not here in the ambience of his own bedroom, his window still open and a rush not unlike jumping from too high up parsing through him like a hot knife and butter. “come back. i got you.”

“jongin,” he murmurs.

“there you are,” and he’s smiling now, taeyong can hear it in his voice, can taste it in the air like a bloodhound. he’s held like a baby bird, all his bones made of wet tissue. all the other boy has to do is squeeze. “don’t wander off, taeyongie, you know i can’t follow you.”

“i was just—” he cuts himself off, the trembling in his words disconcerting. he swallows, shakes his head.

“we don’t have to.”

no. “no.” no. “just kiss me. please.”

jongin looks at him, studies him, scrutinizes him without heat, and here is the best friend who watched him eat so many dumplings that he couldn’t eat them for like, five and a half years afterwards. here he is: the very boy that held his hair back in a dormitory bathroom the first time he’d ever smoked pot. the boy whose touch has always been gentle, strong—nimble and better and good and—

and no, taeyong isn’t going to wander off again. he’s okay here for a little while.

and he’s not particularly sure who leans in first, but they meet somewhere in the proverbial middle as most immovable objects do, and taeyong curls his hand into the locks of jongin’s hair, holds him there and yet he’s still free to move. they dance, in a way. a schism of energy, crafting matter from thin air, the weight of jongin on top of him like security and like suffocating. his hips move to a tune the both of them seem to hear, though their ears don’t register its tone.

silence. crickets. cars.

denim and skin separate them, taeyong nearly clawing at the barriers to get through, to mix and blend and mend the little hazards that populate their insides. jongin reaches down to take hold, to squeeze his baby bird bones and break them with kindness, all lean muscle and good genes, dorito smiles and molly-high heavy petting sessions, (the encounters of the premature kind [that continued on through the night so it wasn’t all that bad really,]) and at the way taeyong’s heartbeat appears to stutter, at the way the other boy must _feel_ it, his gaze grows fonder, if possible. it’s like the jaggedness gives way to something soft, something to cushion it from the fall (from grace).

fall from grace. like a joke.

whatever it is, it leads to taeyong pulling jongin down, attaching his mouth to his neck like a thirsty vampire, and biting down.

the reaction is instantaneous: he is as putty in taeyong’s hands, a surprised groan punched from his stomach and out of his mouth and taeyong wants to swallow it, swallow him up, push him down whole, press him into the mattress and take out his soul with the sheets just to hope to have a fraction of a chance to chase the kind of feelings the other boy invokes in him.

he says this, far less eloquently, in a burst of words that sound better in his head than they do out loud, and they’re both pressed so close together that there is nothing but the combination of them. stomach, spirit, eyes: everything is both, a pair, alchemized together for nothing more than a human mind. he speaks as if in agony. a gasp, a sob, sudden and unbecoming. raw.

“this was all you needed,” jongin whispers like a prayer. he turns his head towards taeyong’s, digs him up from the confines of his bruise-stained neck, and their hips stop moving, bodies crumbling like exhaustion. “you’re okay,” he sniffles. “i’m sorry.”

“don’t apologize,” taeyong says hotly. he doesn’t sound very intimidating with a wet voice.

jongin kisses his temple, his cheek. “i think i’m beyond the love point of this relationship by now,” he confesses.

feelings. _feelings_. he _feels_ like crawling through broken glass, like eating them up and puking them out.

“i don’t really like who i am without you,” jongin continues. the words are pressed into his jaw, into the velvet of taeyong’s mouth like he’s feeding him water. “realized that years ago. i’m kind of obsessed with you.”

“you—?”

“yeah. are we allowed to talk about the stupid elephant in the room? it doesn’t get to be pink. it’s lime green or something dumb like that.”

“i,” taeyong says like a smart boy.

“it’s easy, ’yongie,” jongin says, cupping the boy’s face in his big hands and looking at him with lust-warm eyes giving way to a deeper thing. or maybe it’s not lust-warm. maybe it’s just—oh. maybe it’s just the way jongin looks at him.

maybe he doesn’t care about death after all.

“you want me. i want you. it’s easy,” jongin states like it’s nothing.

_it’s easy_.

“yeah,” taeyong murmurs like a reckoning.

“grow not-old with me. we already are.”

“yeah.”

“taeyong.”

the boy smiles a little and jongin’s shoulders droop a bit in response, drops a kiss to his lips that turns into several.

“i’m always gonna, y’know,” taeyong says suddenly, pulling back.

“always gonna what?”

“ugh, _words_. don’t make me say the l word. just read my mind.”

jongin snorts, leans down to bite at his cheek, earning a squirming body underneath him. “i know you’re always gonna,” answers jongin. “i’m always gonna too.”

“good. i— it’s always good when you’re here.”

and the smile that taeyong gets. that’s it. that’s long-lost childhoods and defunct playgrounds and slumber party super smash brothers duels, the librarian that hated them because jongin refused to return to his class when taeyong was seven and jongin was eight because he knew taeyong would be lonely without him, the late night not-study groups and all the lies he’s ever told his parents. that’s familiarity and finality in one flash of the teeth.

that’s taking care of jongin when he overworks himself again, forgets to eat and only subsists off of spite and bisexuality for two days before he passes out on the sidewalk in front of the starbucks. that’s letting jongin weep out the stress with his head in taeyong’s lap. that’s every birthday party, every christmas, every new year, every c_huseok_. every fucking day of his life spent in a constant state of living and dying and jongin is the buoy in this dumb ocean, the one keeping him afloat.

and with the way jongin clings to him, he’d be willing to bet it’s a similar situation in jongin’s head.

“just stay,” murmurs the tall boy, vulnerable.

“don’t worry,” he says. “i don’t plan on leaving.”

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/goengshis/)


End file.
